


Vanity Mirror

by HiLarpItsCat



Category: In Nomine
Genre: Angels vs. Demons, Deities, F/M, LARP OCs, LARPing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 10:42:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiLarpItsCat
Summary: Rivka wasn't always an angel. Her enemies weren't always demons.They all had different names, a long time ago. Sometimes they still meet up for coffee.





	Vanity Mirror

_Chicago, 2018_

Angels don't need to sleep for very long, but Rivka lounges in bed for an hour or two after waking. Even after all these years, the simple art of doing nothing still thrills her. "They serve who also stand and wait"—surely, lying down must count as well?

She enjoys her morning rituals: picking an outfit, fixing her hair, putting on makeup. She saves her lipstick for when she comes downstairs. It may be a bit too irreverent to apply lipstick while examining herself in a Scrying Mirror, but it isn't as though she uses it for scrying when she does so. Most of the time, it's just a mirror. Not everything has to be capital-e Ethereal all the time.

How can anyone experience this Corporeal world and not feel a fierce, joyous love for it?

She presses her lips together to blend in the color on her lips and regards herself again in the mirror. This vessel is beautiful; _she_ is beautiful. It isn't vanity if it's accurate self-assessment, she thinks with a smile.

Over the years, she has perfected her ingenue appearance—English Rose, Gibson Girl, the Girl Next Door—whatever her surroundings need her to be. She needs people to trust her, needs them to like her, needs it like a cool drink on a hot day. She can't stand not being liked.

She has just finished making coffee when there is a knock at the door. She knows it's Nisroch without even looking up. Their pasts are too intertwined for her to not know.

As she opens the door, he recites the usual words: "I, Nisroch, servant of the Demon Prince Baal, request temporary sanctuary within this house."

As Rivka grabs the nearby Guestbook, Nisroch sniffs the air. "And coffee," he adds. "I also request coffee."

Rivka gives him a grin and holds out a pen. "Sign in, please." He does so.

Once the formalities are out of the way, they head back to the kitchen. "I was going to make pancakes," she remarks as she hunts for another coffee mug. "Would you like some?"

"Please," he says, baring sharp teeth at her. "I don't often get the opportunity to have others cook for me."

"Still chef for the Princes, then?" she asks, setting two steaming cups on the kitchen table.

"Yes." He sighs. "So much food, and yet I only get a fleeting taste. A bitter irony."

"It was your choice to beat your plowshare into a sword, my dear."

"A choice I do not regret," he says. "War has a taste unlike any other, and I do have my appetites. Even the scraps from Baal's table are enough to sate me for a time."

She doesn't talk of the past often, but Nisroch has a habit of drawing it out of her. Though she no longer feels the desires of her former self, she remembers what it was like to feast on battle oaths and how rich and sweet they felt on her tongue. But instead she remarks, lightly, "Well, all I have to offer is pancakes."

"And your affection: an even tastier delicacy." He makes a motion as if to reach for her, but stops and sips his coffee instead.

Rivka busies herself with cooking. She can't deny it: she enjoys his visits. She enjoys the danger of it, how it floods her body with a rush of adrenaline. How it makes her more conscious of her corporeal self.

She sets the warm plates down on the table and goes back into the kitchen to get syrup. When she turns back around, Nisroch has already devoured most of the pancakes. She waves a hand to shoo him away from the last one, and he uses the opportunity to take her hand in his. He is gentler than she expected him to be.

"Come back with me," he says. There is a hunger in his eyes, but a different one than the one he had before. This one is urgent, pleading. "Lilith speaks of you sometimes—she remembers you from Nippur, all those years ago, before it all went wrong. She would take you in."

"I can't," she says. She doesn't pull away, though. "My place is here."

"She could give you freedom."

"That isn't freedom. Not with your heart locked away."

"Then you aren't free either, are you?" he counters.

"I never said that I was," she points out, "but I made my choice a long time ago."

"But why with them? They were there to wipe us out!" He is getting angry, but not with her. He could never hurt her, even now, even if they were without the protection of sanctuary.

"They're the side that's going to win."

"You don't know that. No one knows that. The outcome is always uncertain." He is nearly trembling; she can feel it through his hand. "It isn't too late."

"It's not too late for you either," she says softly. "You could steal back your heart, run away, be remade." Every time he visits, it always comes back to this: he makes his offer, she makes hers. Nothing changes, but it doesn't stop them from holding onto the hope that it one day might.

He shakes his head. "Not after their crusades. I would never beg for their help."

"What about my help?"

One side of his mouth twitches into a smile. "Vainglory," he teases.

"It isn't vanity if it's true," she says, giving a gentle tug on his hand. He rises to his feet and wraps her in an embrace. She buries her face in his shoulder and remembers...

* * *

_Anatolia, 12th century BCE_

Ishara remembers the last prayer she ever received.

A soldier left behind a young wife; they had married only the night before. Their wedding night was too brief, and in the morning she was seized with fear. The empire in the southwest was too powerful, numbered too many; this was her people's last stand before the great city to the north was destroyed. All she wanted was for her husband to return to her alive.

The men put little faith in gods these days, but the women told stories, passed down names, rites, and totems.

There was only a little oil in the bowl of her best lamp. Her hands shook as she lit the wick.

It was a desperate prayer made in a desperate hour, nothing like the great prayers that used to be made in the years before at the temples in Nippur, in Kish, in Sippar. A few whispered words over a small clay figure anointed with oil.

The goddess heard the prayer but by then there was little she could do. Human minds had given her shape, form, and power, but there was so little left of her now. No one remembered her anymore. She offered what solace she could: the soldier died quickly and painlessly on the blade of an Assyrian sword. When the invading army came to her home, the wife died still believing that her husband might be alive.

The great cities were destroyed.

All too soon, armies came for the goddess as well. She had nothing left to survive on.

In the end, all she could do was leave her old self behind and hope for mercy.

* * *

"I thought demons were supposed to smell like brimstone," she murmurs. She hasn't been this close to him in a very long time.

Nisroch's chest jerks in a laugh. "Showers help." He pauses, as if trying to figure out how to phrase something. "I saw that necklace of yours," he says. "Some things about you haven't changed, at least."

By reflex, Rivka's fingers fly up to grip the small silver scorpion figure. Even after all this time, this vessel has its own surprises for her. "I guess I thought it would be funny," she says softly.

"Thumbing your pretty nose at the Heavenly Host, eh?"

"Not as such," she says, relaxing a little. "Phontine liked it, though."

He holds her a little tighter. "I should go," he says. He tilts her face up so that their eyes meet. "But before I do—could you call me by my old name?"

"Why?"

"I just want to hear it. It's been so long."

She closes her eyes as she says "Ninurta." A god of agriculture and hunting whose human worshippers remade him into a war god. A long time ago, they were alike.

But not anymore. Now they stood on opposite sides of a war.

"Ishara," he whispers, but she opens her eyes and places her fingers over his mouth.

"No," she says, not unkindly. "That isn't my name. I'm not her anymore."

He nods and steps back, but she can still feel the warmth of his breath on the tips of her fingers. He leaves without meeting her eyes.

For a time, she stands alone, waiting for her breathing to return to normal. When she finally looks in the mirror, she notices that her lipstick is smudged.


End file.
